This Friday, sources from the Government of Ariel Henry leaked that the Caribbean country plans to request international military aid to deal with the gangs. In the midst of a supply crisis and a new outbreak of cholera, an alliance of gangs took control of the main fuel terminal in Port-au-Prince, further complicating medical assistance and the distribution of basic products.
Haiti’s illegal gangs are putting the government on the ropes. For this reason, this Friday the Ariel Henry Executive announced that it plans to request military aid from the international community, as published exclusively by the newspaper ‘Miami Herald‘.
“Last night, in the Council of Ministers, it was decided to request military assistance from the international community to deal with this very serious humanitarian crisis,” a spokesman for Prime Minister Ariel Henry wrote via text message.
And it is that the situation in the poorest country in America is getting worse by the minute. Immersed in a severe fuel supply crisis that has paralyzed everything – from hospital staffing to basic food distribution – Haiti is also having to deal with the “parallel government” of gangs. Last month, an alliance of illegal groups took control of the capital’s main fuel terminal, Verrux, which has complicated the distribution of drinking water amid a cholera outbreak.
It has not yet been specified which countries or organizations will be asked for military support, but government sources assured that the request will be launched this Friday, since it is essential that the Executive have access to fuel again.
All in the midst of a wave of protests, social unrest, lack of confidence in the government, economic crisis and insecurity that Ariel Henry himself defined as a “humanitarian crisis” on October 5.
“I ask the international community and all the friends of Haiti to support us, to help us fight this humanitarian crisis (…) I need you to give us support to prevent people from dying en masse,” Henry said during a televised intervention.
Shortly after the meeting of ministers, in which it was agreed to ask for military help, rumors began to circulate about the possible resignation of Henry, something that led to hundreds of Haitians going out to celebrate in the streets on Thursday night, but which his office has categorically denied.
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Il s’agit purely et simply de stratégies d’affabulations, d’intoxication, orchestrées par des individus ill intentionnés, visant à semer avantage le trouble et la confusion.#Haiti #Primature
— Primature of the Republic of Haiti (@PrimatureHT) October 7, 2022
“This is pure and simple manufacturing strategies, intoxication, orchestrated by malicious individuals, with the aim of sowing more problems and confusion,” the prime minister’s office said on social media.
With the country paralyzed for more than a month, many protesters have refused to give in unless Henry submits his resignation, whom they describe as “incapable” and point out as allegedly linked to the assassination of Jovenel Moïse in July 2021 .
The return of international military aid in Haiti, a controversial issue
The United Nations mission left Haiti in 2017, after spending 11 controversial years in the country. And it is that those known as “blue helmets” of the United Nations were singled out for sexual assault and abuse and for causing a cholera epidemic that killed almost 10,000 people in the Caribbean nation.
“11-year-old girls were sexually abused and impregnated by the blue helmets, to later leave them in misery, where they had to raise their children alone”, assures a report published in International Peacekeeping.
Children born of these abuses are known as ‘babies casques bleus’ -baby blue helmets-. Abuses for which many Haitians oppose the return of foreign military forces.
“I don’t think Haiti needs another intervention (…) We have been through so many, and nothing has been solved… If we don’t do it as Haitians, in ten years we will be in the same situation again,” said Mathias Pierre, a former Minister of the Government of Haiti, to the news agency Associated Press.
“I don’t think Haiti needs another intervention,” said Mathias Pierre, Haiti’s former elections minister. “We have been through so many, and nothing has been solved. If we don’t do it as Haitians,10 years forward,we’re going to be in the same situation again”https://t.co/9tgKIh3Q1Z
— Mathias Pierre (@MathiasPierre00) October 7, 2022
Pierre also argued that a foreign intervention would undermine the country’s sovereignty and endanger citizens, since the gangs – far from being heavily equipped – often use the civilian population itself as human shields.
From Lima, Luis Almagro, Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), held a meeting on Thursday with the Secretary of State of the United States, Antony Blinken; the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada, Mélanie Joly, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Haiti, Jean Victor Généus, to discuss the worsening situation in the country.
After that meeting, Almagro supported in social networks that the country asked for foreign help, something that suggests that they talked about the possibility of requesting foreign military assistance.
“Together with ministers Mélanie Joly, Jean Victor Généus and Antony Blinken at a meeting on Haiti at the OAS Assembly, I said that Haiti must seek urgent assistance from the international community to help resolve security crises, determine the characteristics of the international security force,” Almagro posted late Thursday on Twitter.
Meanwhile, the United Nations has expressed its concern for the Caribbean country. On Thursday, the international organization called for the creation of a “humanitarian corridor” to allow the distribution of fuel and basic products to the population, with special emphasis on controlling the new cholera outbreak that has already left at least eight dead.
“Without fuel, there is no clean water, without clean water, there will be more cases and it will be very difficult to contain this outbreak,” Ulrika Richardson, the United Nations humanitarian and resident coordinator in Haiti, told reporters Thursday from Port-au-Prince.
With poverty ravaging the country and insecurity on the rise, the UN also recalled a pattern that is repeated in all humanitarian crises: “the most vulnerable people will be the first to suffer the consequences.”
With AP, Reuters and local media
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